Storm Chaser and Tank Blow Into Town

By

Marshall Heyman

July 2, 2011

As one of the stars of "Storm Chasers" on the Discovery Channel, normally the IMAX filmmaker
Sean Casey
drives a TIV, or Tornado Intercept Vehicle, around the Midwestern middle of nowhere chasing storms. But this week, with alternate side of the street parking in full effect, Mr. Casey's eight-ton, tank-like, souped-up Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck has been parked like a regular commuter car on the Upper West Side, "wherever we can find a spot," he said. (It doesn't quite clear a city garage.)

ENLARGE

Sean Casey of 'Storm Chasers' on a leisurely drive through Central Park.
Philip Montgomery for The Wall Street Journal

And it's pretty secure no matter where it sits, especially on the mean streets in the vicinity of everyone's favorite brunch spot, Sarabeth's. With its unconventional locks, "you'd have to take a blowtorch to get inside," Mr. Casey said.

His latest film, "Tornado Alley," has been touring IMAX screens around the country, and starting Monday it will have regular showings at the Museum of Natural History.

So Mr. Casey, who is based on the West Coast and has been on the road for the past three months, drove to the Big Apple in his TIV 2 to promote his film and he offered a reporter a ride around Manhattan. What's scarier anyway: severe inclement weather or taxi drivers with Bluetooth headsets? The eye of a storm or a St. John-clad matron on Madison Avenue with a heavy Birkin bag? The possibility of being swept away by a cumulonimbus cloud or non-English-speaking tourists drinking frozen lemonade and carrying digital cameras in pedicabs in Central Park?

A horde of young museum visitors swarmed the TIV 2 as it pulled onto 81st Street. Like a trucker, Mr. Casey reached up and pulled his air horn as a way of saying "hey." "People really appreciate the air horn," he said. "It's probably one of my favorite parts of the car."

This is high praise, considering the TIV 2 has spikes, a photo of some prairie dogs, hydraulic panels, lifts, a swiveling jump seat, an anemometer that measures wind speed, a license plate reading "Do Not Follow During Adverse Weather" and a 92-pound IMAX camera in the back.

"What is that?" a taxi driver asked, reaching his head out of the front seat, of the TIV 2.

"It's for going into tornadoes," Mr. Casey said, pulling into Central Park, as a few yellow cabs gave him the right of way. "The cab drivers here have actually been very nice."

The day before, he had taken the TIV 2 out to visit the production company that makes his television show. It involved a ride down Park Avenue and up Sixth. "It was surreal to be next to so many people, it was like a circus," he said. "We thought the bearded lady was going to pop out from somewhere."

As the tank veered down Fifth Avenue, Mr. Casey said he started storm chasing a little over a decade ago. He had been in Christmas Island for 2½ months working on an IMAX film called "Amazing Journeys" and he checked a book about storms out from the library. "It sounded really appealing as opposed to being stuck on this island," he said.

ENLARGE

Mr. Casey in his TIV 2.
Philip Montgomery for The Wall Street Journal

So he found a meteorologist who would let him follow in his Nissan Pathfinder. "In Los Angeles, you don't get super storms. You get drizzle to heavy rain. But to see these powerful storms, it was transporting. … It was love at first sight."

It helped that Mr. Casey had an IMAX camera, which his father had purchased at auction many years before. (They are normally quite expensive to rent.) "There's no way I could have done this film otherwise," he said, as a man on a bright green motorcycle gave him the thumbs up.

It also helped to have the TIV, which has a 92-gallon tank, gets 10 miles per gallon and runs on diesel fuel.

"There's only so close you can get to a tornado in a rented minivan from Enterprise," Mr. Casey explained, as he passed FAO Schwarz and the Apple store on his left. "I wanted something we could use to stand our ground in, something truly awe-inspiring to do justice to what we were seeing. No one wanted to fund a suicide mission, so I had to weld and build the vehicles myself."

"When you see a lion kill a zebra, it's pretty much the same every time," Mr. Casey continued. "Tornadoes can look so different. They always surprise you."

They also still exhilarate him: "Of course you get scared. Every time you get a tornado in front of you."

Today, in front of him, there were just little kids and their nannies. Below 57th Street, near Bendel's, a man dressed nattily in a suit and carrying a bunch of fashion magazines called out to Mr. Casey. "Excuse me, what is this?" the man said.

"It's to go into a tornado," Mr. Casey replied.

"Why? Is there a tornado coming to New York? Because I have to go back to France if there is."

Mr. Casey assured him there was no danger of major inclement weather. This wouldn't be the first time on our journey he would have to do this.

Turning up Sixth Avenue, Mr. Casey said he spends about 70 days a year chasing tornadoes. "You'll get 15 viable days and three really good, high-risk chase days." A tornado going at 60 miles per hour is too fast to chase; tornadoes at 25 miles per hour are easier to capture on film. "That's fish in a barrel."

As Mr. Casey maneuvered the large vehicle through traffic, he said he wouldn't mind having an altercation with another driver: "It would be cool to have a taxi sideswipe us and be at this intersection and have an argument." Of course that didn't happen, and instead he made his way to Madison.

"What's this, for a Batman movie?" a pedicab driver called out.

Wherever Mr. Casey drove, people craned their necks to take footage on their iPhones. He described traveling by TIV as something akin to the "vandals invading Rome," while at the same time feeling like a "monkey in the zoo." Still he found the prospects calming, especially on the Upper East Side, where the ladies who lunch barely noticed this huge tank infiltrating its area.

"Looks like you're going to war," a woman by the gelato stand near the Carlyle Hotel said.

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